Tag Archives: spring

All our favorite posts about spring in Northeast Texas including gardening, photos & more posted on TexasHomesteader.com

April Vegetable Garden Update: New Raised Bed, Late Start, Seeds etc.

By Texas Homesteader ~ 

Between family illness, weather woes & garden changes I’ve gotten off to a slow start in the garden this season. But there are some very exciting gardening things I’ve enjoyed as well.

Let’s stroll through my NE Texas Homestead garden and see what’s going on…

My zone 8 vegetable garden is off to a slow start, and some plants succumbed to the February winter storm. But there are many successes as well. Come see! #TexasHomesteader

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Make Your Own Hummingbird Food – Only 2 Ingredients!

by Texas Homesteader ~ 

You can make hummingbird food at home in minutes for a fraction of the cost of buying the commercial stuff. And it requires only two ingredients – sugar and water. 

Hummingbird in flight looking for food sugar water #TexasHomesteader

photo courtesy of Harrison Haines & Pexels

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Requeening a Honeybee Hive – Things We Didn’t Know…

By Texas Homesteader ~ 

Hobby Beekeeping is enjoying quite a popular resurgence. Many people are becoming interested in raising their own bees, whether for pollination of their own gardens, that delicious honey, valuable beeswax or just to care for our beloved pollinators.

Today I’ll be talking about requeening our hive. There are many reasons a beekeeper might want to requeen their hives. Maybe their existing queen is older and not productive anymore. Or maybe over the years the bees in the hive have swarmed and requeened their colony so many times the hive is becoming more aggressive, or ‘hot’.

You see, each time the colony makes their own queen, she must make her maiden flight for breeding with the surrounding bees. Oftentimes those are wild bees and some might even have more aggressive Africanized bee influence.

If you have very many generations taking those steps you’ve gotten too much opportunity for aggressive characteristics to be introduced into your hive.

There are several reasons beekeepers like to requeen their beehive. Recently we made a split and requeened two hive boxes. #TexasHomesteader

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